1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conveyor belt, more particularly, a thin conveyor belt suitable for use in a photosensitive-material transport apparatus incorporated in a photographic processing system. The invention relates also to the photosensitive-material transport apparatus using such conveyor belt.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the conveyor belt of the above-noted type is fabricated by coating a core formed typically of cloth or nylon cord, with coating material such as rubber or plastic. In case the belt is employed in a photosensitive-material transport apparatus, it is required that the conveyor belt have a certain amount of coefficient of friction. For this reason, the plastic-coated conveyor belt is not preferred. On the other hand, in the case of the rubber-coated conveyor belt, the thickness of the rubber coating should be minimized in order to reduce the thickness of the belt. However, this is only possible at the costs of reduced durability of the belt. In addition to the above, it has been also proposed to fabricate a thin conveyor belt by impregnating a cloth core with rubber material. This type of belt suffers disadvantage of tendency to elongate, which makes it difficult to transport objects (e.g. photosensitive materials) one after another with an appropriate and correct spacing therebetween. Further, the belt of this type suffers another disadvantage of insufficient rigidity, i.e. stiffness of the belt per se. The insufficient stiffness presents difficulty in taking appropriate measure required for preventing `wobbling` of the belt by e.g. laterally restricting the travel of the belt by means of a guide plate(s).